If prosperity leads to more inequality, then what?

A new Brookings Institution report on income inequality in America’s 50 biggest cities has the potential to push the debate on this increasingly pressing issue in a positive direction.

That’s because the report notes that in many cities, prosperity in thriving individual industries is what’s widening income inequality. This reflects how our economy increasingly rewards people with elite job skills — particularly in tech fields. This finding is only the latest of many indicating that the best way to reduce inequality is to reorient our education system — and to make midlife career changes much more practical — so as to increase the number of people with elite skills.

Instead, the focus has largely been to address the problem on the margins with minimum-wage hikes — or with populist bashing of the “1 percent.”

But neither approach will change the economic dynamics in San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles, which are all among the cities with the 10 biggest gaps between their richest 5 percent and their poorest 20 percent. The same holds for San Diego, which was 35th among the 50 cities but still has a stark divide between rich and poor.

California needs constructive, ambitious changes in public policy to address income inequality. The rise of robot labor is likely to further reduce middle-class jobs.

These changes should start with a reorienting of public schools away from a status quo that reflects the needs of the low-tech 1950s — not the modern day.